Tongs

ABSTRACT

The invention relates to a simple method for producing tongs ( 1 ) and to a tong ( 1 ) comprising two arms ( 2 ) consisting of wooden material that can be elastically bent in relation to one another, said arms ( 2 ) being rigidly inserted into a head piece ( 3 ) at an angle to on another. To obtain an advantageous construction, each arm ( 2 ) is inserted into a respective groove of the wooden head piece ( 3 ), said V-shaped grooves being angled towards one another and both arms are connected to the head piece ( 3 ) in a permanent manner.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

Applicant claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 of Austrian ApplicationNo. GM 69/2003 filed Feb. 12, 2003. Applicant also claims priority under35 U.S.C. §365 of PCT/AT04/000024 filed Jan. 23, 2004. The internationalapplication under PCT article 21(2) was not published in English.

1. Field of the Invention

The invention refers to a tong comprising two converging arms consistingof elastically bendable wooden material and rigidly inserted into a headpiece.

2. Description of the Prior Art

In order to seize food, tongs are known (DE 442 855 B) comprising twoarms consisting of elastically bendable wooden material, which areinserted into a hollow conical head piece made of metal. Due to the formof the head piece and due to a cross strut at the open end of the conesurface area, the arms are rigidly inserted into the head piece at anangle to each other. However, a disadvantage about this tong is that thetong arms are easily detachable, since they fit only over small bearingsurfaces inside the head piece. Repeated use leads soon to an increaseof the axial play, so that the necessary rigid support is no longergiven. In addition, the production of a conical head piece is complexand costly, in addition to which a cross strut needs to be introduced atthe open end of the cone surface area.

Furthermore, tongs are known (U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,835 B) which haveserving members held together with a head piece designed as a sleeve.The serving members are inserted into the head piece in parallel andthis head piece holds the serving members together with a snap-fittingengagement. A disadvantage with using these tongs is, that with areduction of the spring force of the snap-fitting engagement, a releaseof the serving members from the head piece may take place when holdingfood. In addition, the spring force of the snap-fitting engagement doesnot provide a rigid support of the serving members in the head piece,that gives a feeling of a sensitive holding of the food with the tongarms. Also, regenerating materials, like wooden materials, can be usedfor the head piece only at high production expenditure, which doesn'tallow economical manufacturing of such tongs.

Other tongs (DE 75 02 395 U) consist of a head piece and two servingmembers. Thus a head piece is shown (FIG. 9), which has two servingmembers rigidly inserted at an angle to each other. For this purpose,two hole-like recesses, such as bores, pass through the whole headpiece. In these recesses, the serving members are inserted. Adisadvantage is, that the bending forces the serving members exert uponthe head piece have to be taken up by the head piece parts lateral tothe bores, which demands an increased expenditure of material. Also, thewidth of the head piece has to be larger than the width of the tongarms, therefore narrow tongs can't be produced with such a head piece.In addition, a rectangular recess is comparatively difficult to producein a wooden head piece.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is one object of the present invention to improve a tong as well asto improve a production of a tong, in such a manner that despite a highload capacity of the tongs the tongs can be produced economically fromregenerating materials. In addition the tong should distinguish to othertongs in ability of recycling and in smallest dimensions.

The object is achieved by the present invention in such a way that eacharm is inserted into a respective groove of the wooden head piece, thegrooves converging towards each other to form a V-shape, and both armsare connected to the head piece in a permanent manner.

As the tong arms are inserted into a respective groove of the headpiece, the V-shaped grooves converging towards each other, the tong armsrigidly support themselves over large enough bearing surfaces in thehead piece, which avoids axial play even with frequent bending of thetong arms. Therefore less resistant materials, for example woodmaterials, can be used, without a danger of detaching the tong arms fromthe head piece. In order to prevent also a lateral shifting of the tongarms in the respective groove, the tong arms are connected in apermanent manner with the head piece. Since now the entire tong can bemanufactured from wooden material, a complex recycling technique for thetongs is not needed, what allows the tongs to act as a one-way tong. Asit is possible to choose the width of the head piece equally to thewidth of the tong arms, a decrease of the expenditure for material andthe production of slim tongs are possible.

With grooves located in the front part of the tongs inside the tongarms, food can be gripped more securely by the tongs.

If each tong arm carries a descending ramp on its inside, coherent foodmay be more easily separated. Also, food can be better seized by puttingthe tong arms underneath the food.

With providing grooves in the head piece of the tong, a particularlysimple and economical manufacture of a tong from wooden material ispossible. Thus in a first step, an elastically bendable wooden plate isinserted into a respective groove of a wooden strip, the groovesconverging towards each other and both plates are connected to the stripin a permanent manner. In a further step, the tongs are separated by acut across the strip with the permanently connected plates.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter of the invention is shown by the way of example inthe drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a tong according to invention in perspective view, and

FIG. 2 is a side view of FIG. 1.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

According to the illustrated embodiment, the tong 1 (FIG. 1, FIG. 2)comprises two arms 2 consisting of wooden material that can beelastically bent and a wooden head piece 3. The tong arms 2 are rigidlyinserted into a groove of head piece 3 at an angle to each other. Theseparate grooves of the wooden head piece 3 converge towards each other(FIG. 2) to form a V-shape. The grooves form a web in the head piece 3of sufficient strength. In order to prevent a shifting of the tong arms2 in the respective groove, the tong arms 2 are connected to the headpiece 3 in a permanent manner, for example with glue.

The tong 1 has grooves 4 located in the open front part of the tong 1 onthe inside of tong arms 2. Also on the inside each tong arm 2 has a ramp5 descending to the jaw of the tong 1, in order to improve seizing offood. In addition, the head piece 3 width is the same as that of thetong arms 2, so that the tong is particularly comfortable 1 in itshandling.

Since the head piece 3 is made of wood material, the head piece 3 can befavourably separated from a strip in which two grooves are milled. Thetong arms 2 must only be inserted then into the head piece 3. Howeverespecially easy and economical is the production of the tongs 1 by atechnique in which a separation cut is effected after insertion of thetong arms 2 into the head piece 3.

1. A tong comprising a head piece having a width and consisting ofwooden material, the head piece having two grooves extendingtransversely therethrough in the direction of the width from one side ofthe head piece to the other, the grooves converging towards each otherto form a V-shape, and two arms having the same width as the width ofthe head piece and consisting of wooden material elastically bendable inrelation to one another, the arms having one end rigidly inserted in thegrooves and connected to the head piece in a permanent manner to formconverging arms.
 2. The tong of claim 1, wherein the inside of the endsof the arms opposite the one end have transversely extending grooves. 3.The tong of claim 1, wherein the inside of the ends of the arms oppositethe one end have descending ramps.
 4. A method for producing tongs,which comprises a first step of rigidly inserting two elasticallybendable plates consisting of a wooden material into two grooves in astrip consisting of a wooden material, the two grooves extending alongthe length of the strip and converging to form a V-shape, and connectingthe plates to the strip in a permanent manner to form converging plates,and a second step of dividing the strip with the permanently connectedplates into respective ones of the tongs by cuts across the strip andplates.